


that boy: an enigma

by ringtheory



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Character Study, Gen, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:26:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25197676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ringtheory/pseuds/ringtheory
Summary: When Akechi regains his sense of self, he understands intuitively that he still has a chance to live. Whether or not he wants to live is beyond the point. To live without choice is the denial of a fundamental aspect of what it is to be human. Therefore, he must seize his chance, become human again, and only then – as a human being – can he make a choice to live or die.After he forms this conviction, a road appears before him.The Sea of Souls is a space of pure existence. Time and space matter only when they are actively perceived by the self-realized individual. A road appears because Akechi can most easily make sense of the journey ahead of him by visualizing it as a literal road. Otherwise, the Sea of Souls remains formless around him – within the nothingness, other souls shine weakly. As they are too far away to light his way, Akechi pays them no mind.Without hesitating, Akechi starts to walk. The road is either a path, in which case he will advance, or it is not, in which case he would be no worse off than he would be if he stays still. This is why he does not hesitate to go forth.So Akechi walks.As he walks, he remembers. And as he remembers, that boy approaches.
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 5
Kudos: 45





	that boy: an enigma

When Akechi regains his sense of self, he understands intuitively that he still has a chance to live. Whether or not he wants to live is beyond the point. To live without choice is the denial of a fundamental aspect of what it is to be human. Therefore, he must seize his chance, become human again, and only then – as a human being – can he make a choice to live or die.

After he forms this conviction, a road appears before him.

The Sea of Souls is a space of pure existence. Time and space matter only when they are actively perceived by the self-realized individual. A road appears because Akechi can most easily make sense of the journey ahead of him by visualizing it as a literal road. Otherwise, the Sea of Souls remains formless around him – within the nothingness, other souls shine weakly. As they are too far away to light his way, Akechi pays them no mind.

Without hesitating, Akechi starts to walk. The road is either a path, in which case he will advance, or it is not, in which case he would be no worse off than he would be if he stays still. This is why he does not hesitate to go forth.

So Akechi walks.

As he walks, he remembers. And as he remembers, that boy approaches.

“Sweets for the sweet,” his mother would say sometimes before she left for her work. Then she would give him a single piece of candy.

At first, he would unwrap the candy and put it in his mouth. He would let it dissolve slowly inside of him, imagining tiny crystals of sugar flowing through his veins. But after some time, he started saving them on a whim – one for every night his mother didn’t come home. He put them in the drawer of his child-sized desk, which his mother never checked.

Akechi remembers that eventually there came a night when the drawer overflowed. On that night, he unwrapped every single candy he had saved and ate them all.

He felt sick. The candies were good. He felt sluggish. The candies were tasty. He felt dizzy. The candies were gone and so was his mother.

The next time he looked into a mirror, he did not recognize what he saw. _Who is that?_ he had thought, reaching forward until his fingers touched the mirror. Only then did he realize that person reflected back at him was himself and he suddenly understood that yet another thing had gone.

The purpose of Akechi’s journey is to reclaim himself fully. Through strength of will, he has been able to maintain enough sense of identity to revive his consciousness after dying in the cognitive world, but not all aspects of himself were equally well-preserved. In order to ensure survival, he was forced to cut off certain parts of himself. It is crucial that he now recovers those pieces. As he walks, he remembers; as he remembers, he approaches completeness.

But as he approaches completeness, that boy approaches him. Akechi regards him warily. He can see this road because it is _his_ – so there is something deeply abnormal about the fact that another soul is waiting for him by the roadside.

Akechi stops a careful distance away. In response, all that boy does is smile briefly. To Akechi, the expression is an enigma.

“Did you realize,” that boy says, “that you don’t have a form yet?”

That boy’s voice is soft and low. It feels like something is budding in his throat when he speaks. Or maybe the bud is in Akechi’s ears instead, and that is why Akechi does not fully understand the meaning of that boy’s words.

“What do you mean?” Akechi replies, still cautious.

That boy looks at him with eyes full of benevolence before he says, “You don’t seem to have a form. Are you unable to remember what you should look like?”

Suddenly, Akechi is struck with embarrassment that he overlooked something so important. “No, I know what I look like,” he says.

“There’s nothing wrong with it,” that boy tells him, “if you wish to stay without form. That only means that you aren’t attached to your physical appearance.”

Akechi does not reply and concentrates instead on recovering his form. Once he has a firm image of himself in mind, he is able to manifest that self-image. Immediately, he looks down to verify that he has properly restored his physical body. The length of his limbs all feel correct; he wears his school’s winter uniform.

“So that’s how you see yourself,” that boy says.

“It’s none of your concern,” Akechi replies curtly.

That boy’s expression is unreadable. He asks, “Why not?”

Akechi either doesn’t answer or can’t answer.

“I think I should leave you alone for now,” that boy says. He smiles again. His mouth, Akechi thinks, is that of one who devours.

Akechi remembers killing. He had found it neither easy nor hard. It was something which he felt he had to do, so whether or not it was difficult simply did not factor into his thoughts on the matter.

Before his first time, he had thought he would hesitate before the decisive moment – but he hadn’t hesitated at all. Even though it was in the cognitive world, when he stabbed his sword through the body, it felt like it could have been happening in reality. The blade didn’t slice through with unnatural cleanness. He had to put in proper force and perform the task with deliberation. He hadn’t enjoyed the act of killing but neither was he repulsed.

He returned to the real world well before the Palace collapsed. On his way home, he had stopped to buy a small bag of loose-leaf black tea. When he was safely back in his apartment, he had brewed himself a cup. After the tea finished steeping, he took out a bag of raw sugar and added a spoonful to the tea. He kept adding more and more, without thinking. By the time he stopped, there was a layer of undissolved sugar at the bottom of his cup.

Akechi drank the tea anyway. He couldn’t taste it at all. But he felt the sugar in his teeth, digging into his gums like grains of sand. For some reason, he thought it wasn’t sweet enough.

Why is it, Akechi wonders, that he can only think of that boy as being _that boy?_ He thinks they are probably around the same age. If somebody called him a boy to his face, Akechi would quietly tolerate it, but it would irritate him greatly. If he had a chance to politely correct the usage of _boy,_ he would insist instead on _young man._

Yet he cannot think of that boy in any other way.

He remembers there had been a time when it was just the two of them – him and that boy. That boy had smiled at nothing in particular. Akechi can’t remember the rest, but that smile was the same as that boy: an enigma.

Having come to no conclusion, he tries to stop wondering about it.

The next time that boy approaches, he starts with a proper greeting. “Hello,” he says.

Akechi can’t ignore him. He wants to believe it’s because he’s suspicious of that boy, so he doesn’t respond.

“If you let me, I could guide you,” that boy tells him.

“And why would you do something like that?” Akechi asks, after a pause.

With calm, that boy answers, “Because there are things that I want to show you. And I’d also like to see you through to the very end.”

It is a disarmingly selfish reply. Akechi wonders briefly if he should trust that boy because of how honest he is with his desires or if he should distrust that boy because it is the kind of answer that somebody who knows him would understand has the potential to make him let down his guard. He is either being used or he is being manipulated. In both cases, it would come at that boy’s benefit. Whether or not Akechi could benefit as well is, to Akechi, a secondary concern at best.

“I’ll have to turn you down,” Akechi replies.

“Well,” that boy says, after a pause, “if ever you are in the situation where there is something you can’t find on your own, you can call on me.”

“Do you know me or not?” Akechi asks curtly. Anybody who has seen Akechi’s true self should know this much: he would rather die than succeed at something only at somebody else’s mercy.

That boy appears to seriously consider the question. Finally, he answers, “Who can say if anybody truly knows another person?”

Derisively, Akechi replies, “I’ll give you that.”

“Thank you,” that boy says. “I’ll take it gladly.”

Akechi does not notice until now that over the course of the conversation, part of his physical form has morphed away from the Akechi of the real world into the Akechi in the cognitive world. His appearance now is caught in-between – perhaps a metaphor of his state. There is a blade strapped to his right hip. When he grasps the hilt, it feels very familiar in his hand.

“I’m going,” Akechi announces. That boy doesn’t stop him, so Akechi continues along his way.

He remembers a day for spring flowers to grow strong. Rain fell but did not cool the air. Akechi passed by a florist’s storefront on his way; from the plants housed outside, petrichor mixed with artificial scent of fertilizer releasing nutrients into soil. What was the name of that boy? The smell reminded Akechi of him.

They sat together in a café’s outdoor canopy, not despite the rain but because of it – the rain would keep others away. Akechi could almost imagine that he was a little prince and they were on a very small planet of their own, but every once in a while, water would drip down and splatter onto the table between them and lock again Akechi’s mind to reality.

That boy had ordered a slice of cake adorned with pieces of apple. Akechi watched as he pierced through an apple chunk with his fork and brought it to his mouth; the sound of his teeth biting through the flesh of the fruit was loud enough that Akechi could hear it over the rainfall. Akechi did not realize he enjoyed listening to that boy consume. What he realized was that his body reacted to the sound, driven not by thought but by instinct.

The skin of the apple had been red or yellow or perhaps both. The color had struck Akechi as an important fact at the time. But he forgot it quickly. It was the sound which lingered.

“You can have a bite,” that boy said, likely in the belief that Akechi’s attention had been attracted by the food.

Akechi smiled primly. He folded his hands together, interlacing his fingers with each other. In the humid air, the gesture had felt somewhat uncomfortable – the fabric of his gloves had clung to his skin and felt like a growing rot. But Akechi wouldn’t allow himself to show that.

“I’m afraid I don’t like things,” he replied, “that are too sweet.”

It was either the truth or it was not.

That boy glanced upwards. For a moment, he looked right into Akechi’s eyes – and Akechi could not tell whether that boy had sensed what was lacking in Akechi’s response. Finally, that boy smiled back. It was also lacking, but in a different way.

The road gets thinner. Akechi can’t tell if that means he is coming to the end of this odyssey or if he is coming upon a dead end. By the third time that boy approaches, there is physically no space for Akechi to avoid him while still keeping his feet firmly planted on the road.

“You again,” Akechi says.

That boy quietly smiles. His veins are direction, his breath is warmth; the presence of his body would like to promise the existence of salvation in exchange for devotion. Ephemeral is the man who might pledge himself to serve, but that boy is concerned not with transient matters. By now, Akechi understands all of this.

That is why the boy at the side of the road says nothing. He merely extends his hand.

Calmly Akechi draws his blade. He cuts that boy through the middle, slicing through his waist. No blood spills forth: that boy’s body is full of holes like the root of a lotus.

His top half dissolves into mist and dissipates. His bottom half turns to sand and crumbles. That boy leaves but emptiness behind, which can fill nobody and provides nothing.

When he is done, Akechi sheathes his blade and continues along his way.

The road continues on and on without changing. It would be dangerous for Akechi to ascribe a length of time in proportion to how far he walks. The moment that he perceives that he has been within the Sea of Souls for an uncountable amount of time, he would likely lose his mind.

There is something, he knows, that he must be missing. But no memories come back to him.

What else is left?

Maybe his mistake

was forsaking that boy.

After all, there had been nothing left of him.

Akechi had always imagined that he would leave behind a beautiful corpse.

No, he had more than imagined it. He _realized_ it.

That boy doesn’t return. And the road continues on.

As he walks, Akechi wishes he had something to eat. But not something sweet. Why had he eaten so many sweets even though he didn’t care for them?

 _Sweets for the sweet,_ his mother had told him…

Mother.

I’m not sweet. But,

I’m still your child.

Aren’t I?

Suddenly Akechi remembers.

“Rebels,” that boy had said one time, when it was the two of them alone, “are all children still…”

He rested his head in his arms and half-closed his eyes. That boy smiled at nothing in particular. He was exposed in a way that Akechi had never considered before. Akechi had either thought it was beautiful or it was not.

“… They are dreaming of living in a different world than the one that they were born in,” that boy continued, “and have the power to bring their dreams into reality.”

He looked up at Akechi, who could not read the emotions behind that boy’s gaze.

“Including you,” that boy told him.

It is those words which makes Akechi understand what it is that he has failed to notice all along.

The road ends at the borderline between the Sea of Souls and the shore of humanity. ******* waits for him there, but Akechi knew he would be.

“Give back what belongs to me,” Akechi says.

“I’ll give it back if you say that you’ll return,” ******* replies.

“I know that this is a trick,” Akechi says. “You aren’t him. He wouldn’t do something so pointless.”

******* tilts his head thoughtfully. It is, to Akechi, such a grotesque mockery. He can taste of something artificially saccharine and it twists his stomach.

“It’s not pointless. Don’t you want the chance to be a good person?” ******* asks.

“I don’t,” Akechi says, “want to be a good person…”

As he begins to confess, he is either in agony or he is not.

But he continues, undeterred: “If I become human again, then I want to be covetous. I want to be full of desire. I want to obtain things… I want to own things… anything that will make me feel full. I want to eat. No, I want to devour. I want to destroy the things that I hate. I want him. That boy, I want him. So return it. _His name._ I want his name back. So give it back.”

He puts his hand on the hilt of his blade again. This time, he holds it in reverse. He advances upon ******* without hesitation. A mask that he had not realized he was wearing this whole time drops from his face.

“No,” Akechi says. “Don’t give it to me. I’ll take what I want.”

He stabs. Again and again, he stabs *******. It is nothing that he hasn’t done before – or at least, the act feels somehow familiar. ******* does not make a sound. Neither blood nor viscera are spilled, but the body erodes until all that left is a core. It is shaped somewhat like a heart, which Akechi picks up and gorges himself upon. The taste of his name has a crisp flavor and mouthfeel to it – like an apple. And either Akechi enjoys eating it or he enjoys eating it.

Thus whole again, Akechi reclaims himself and becomes human once more. As a human, he faces a choice which manifests itself as a door with a lock and a key in Akechi’s hand. Akechi thinks about ******* – he says that name out loud and he smiles for having heard his own voice speak that name. Then he either opens the door or he does not.


End file.
